Last week review 51-2024
Weekly review 51-2024 and instead of winter cold, it’s getting warmer again 🙁
This week, the first part was about significantly reducing the space required for videos that can no longer be changed, i.e. clips for YouTube, for example, by compressing them.
The tool of choice here is of course Handbrake, which has the disadvantage of being very fixated on resolutions and devices. Nevertheless, there is an option here to choose a setting that makes no changes, so that you can use it for clips from Lumix S5 with 4 K, but also for OBS recordings with sometimes only 1440 p.
I have now run through various clips with different encoders. I was a little surprised that converting via the NVidia graphics card leads to quite large files. The smallest files were those converted with Intel QSV. At the same time, it was found that the QSV routines are the same on all Intel CPUs. And that gave the The impetus for further tests, which I will report on in a second part.
Laowa has made a name for itself in recent years with very good manual lenses. Now Laowa is bringing out two new lenses, both with a shift device. They are the Laowa 50mm/2.8 and the 100mm/2.8 Shift Macro.
The two lenses are probably more suitable for product photography and with the shift option you can adjust the focal plane nicely in order to get a shot or at least the object in its entirety in focus. Both lenses allow a maximum image scale of 1:1 and are available for Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z and Lumix L-Mount.
The biggest discussion this week is probably Adobe’s announcement that it is increasing the subscription price for its photo subscription. You read that about an increase from $9.99 to $14.99. On the one hand, this increase is the first since the cloud version was introduced, and on the other hand, at 50%, it is quite steep. But what hurts a lot more, especially for all hobbyists, is the fact that this option with 20GB cloud storage will no longer be available for new customers from January 15, 2025, but only the option with 1TB storage, which is almost twice as expensive at almost €24.
On the other hand, for those who have the photo subscription, the price will not increase if they switch to annual payment. You should probably do that. There are also super cheap offers every Black Friday that allow you to pay for the photo subscription for a year in advance. I did that and now have a photo subscription that runs until November 2026. I then pay the equivalent of less than €7/month for Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC.
And finally, we have reached the end of the year and Christmas is just around the corner. I would therefore like to wish all my readers a merry and yet peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year 2025.
ciao tuxoche
